There was a finality in the shrug of Jean’s shoulders which Philip did not question.  He picked up an axe, and while Jean arranged the tepee poles began to chop down a dry birch.  As the chips flew his mind flew faster.  In his optimism he had half believed that the cloud of mystery in which Josephine had buried him would, in time, be voluntarily lifted by her.  He had not been able to make himself believe that any situation could exist where hopelessness was as complete as she had described.  Without arguing with himself he had taken it for granted that she had been labouring under a tremendous strain, and that no matter what her trouble was it had come to look immeasurably darker to her than it really was.  But Jean’s attitude, his low and unexcited voice, and the almost omniscient decisiveness of his words had convinced him that Josephine had not painted it as blackly as she might.  She, at least, had seemed to see a ray of hope.  Jean saw none, and Philip realized that the half-breed’s calm and unheated judgment was more to be reckoned with than hers.  At the same time, he did not feel dismayed.  He was of the sort who have born in them the fighting instinct, And with this instinct, which is two thirds of life’s battle won, goes the sort of optimism that has opened up raw worlds to the trails of men.  Without the one the other cannot exist.

As the blows of his axe cut deep into the birch, Philip knew that so long as there is life and freedom and a sun above it is impossible for hope to become a thing of char and ash.  He did not use logic.  He simply lived!  He was alive, and he loved Josephine.

The muscles of his arms were like sinews of rawhide.  Every fibre in his body was strung with a splendid strength.  His brain was as clear as the unpolluted air that drifted over the cedar and spruce.  And now to these tremendous forces had come the added strength of the most wonderful thing in the world:  love of a woman.  In spite of all that Josephine and Jean had said, in spite of all the odds that might be against him, he was confident of winning whatever fight might be ahead of him.

He not only felt confident, but cheerful.  He did not try to make Jean understand what it meant to be in camp with the company of a woman for the first time in two years.  Long after the tents were up and the birch-fire was crackling cheerfully in the darkness Josephine still remained in her tent.  But the mere fact that she was there lifted Philip’s soul to the skies.

And Josephine, with a blanket drawn about her shoulders, lay in the thick gloom of her tent and listened to him.  His far-reaching, exuberant whistling seemed to warm her.  She heard him laughing and talking with Jean, whose voice never came to her; farther back, where he was cutting down another birch, she heard him shout out the words of a song between blows; and once, sotto voce, and close to her tent, she quite distinctly heard him say “Damn!” She knew that he had stumbled with an armful of wood, and for the first time in that darkness and her misery she smiled.  That one word alone Philip had not intended that she should hear.  But when it was out he picked himself up and laughed.